A Visual History of the Explosion, From the Big Bang to Keith Moon

Everyone loves fireworks. Even people with anxiety disorders. There's something about the gaudy transformation of energy from one state to another that gets us humans going. Perhaps it's an existential thing. After all, everything around you was created by the first big explosion and smaller stellar explosions elsewhere in the resulting universe. We are, as Carl Sagan once said, made of star-stuff. Fireworks are humankind's own little supernovas, except they're sometimes timed to music, which doesn't happen in space.

So, to celebrate the Fourth of July, we present a visual history of the explosion, from the Big Bang to Jerry Bruckheimer to Keith Moon (who does not actually explode, though he comes pretty close). So get some earplugs and tie yourself down to whatever chair you’re sitting in, because this timeline is going to be a rough ride. If we missed anything, it’s because there have been a lot of explosions in the history of our universe. But we got 11 of them out of the way, and that's a pretty good start.

The Big Bang Starts the Universe Out in the Most Metal Way Possible

~14 billion years ago

Once upon a time, our universe was condensed into a point smaller than a single atom, which sounds super cute but actually was quite volatile. It suddenly burst, giving birth to both time and space. After just 100 seconds, it was trillions of miles across. Innumerable elementary subatomic particles were crashing into one another, with antimatter destroying matter.

Hydrogen gas formed, and collapsed by gravity into itself until pressure grew so immense that those hydrogen atoms fused into helium. So stars were born, fusing atoms into ever more complex elements until the stars began creating iron, at which point they collapsed into themselves and exploded into supernovas – unimaginably powerful detonations that in an instant formed all of the other elements that make up our world.

So every atom in your body was born in a star. You are, technically, a star. Except you, Miley Cyrus.

The impact was equivalent to 100 trillion tons of TNT, or more than a billion times the power of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Shock waves and massive tsunamis rippled across the planet, and the incredible amount of debris thrown out of our atmosphere superheated upon reentry, raining fire around the globe. In the long term, the dust encircling the planet blocked out the sun, killing off plants and drastically cooling Earth. Yet when the dust settled, greenhouse gases from the impact baked our world.

What ensued was the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event, in which some 75 percent of species were wiped out. But, luckily for us, mammals did particularly well in those trying times. Dinosaurs, though, did not. But we’ve honored them with quite a few films of varying degrees of quality, so they’ve got that going for them.

Some Guy Invents Fireworks and Immediately Throws One at His Little Brother, Who Tells on Him

7th century AD

In what is perhaps history’s greatest irony, the Chinese were trying to concoct an elixir for immortality when they stumbled upon gunpowder. They had the good sense to use it not just for weaponry, but also for tormenting family members and cats. Enter fireworks.

There had for centuries already been a more primitive firework in China, in the form of bamboo tossed into a fire. It was believed the resulting explosion would ward off evil spirits. But with the invention of the gunpowder variety, humans could ward off whomever they wanted, whenever they wanted.

While fireworks started as simple gunpowder explosions, today they come in an astonishing variety. All manner of elements, from lithium to barium, are used in modern fireworks to produce various colors and effects, such as sparkles. (The active ingredient in the sparklers you chased your dog with? Aluminum.)

Modern pyrotechnic shows are computer-controlled, using proprietary technology closely guarded by the production companies staging them. Here in America, the “First Family of Fireworks” are the Gruccis, whose average show costs $30,000 and maxes out at a cool $100,000. They go so far as to patent the actual routines, because with a name that’s pretty close to Gucci, you can't be too careful about knockoffs.

Biggest Supernova Ever Recorded Thinks It Can Just Show Up in the Sky All Uninvited

1006 AD

If you were alive in 1006 – and weren’t too busy fighting in a war or shoveling filth or whatever people did back then – and you looked up into the daytime sky, you would have seen a small second sun. And it probably would have confused you, because people didn’t really know anything back then.

SN 1006, as it’s known, was a Type Ia supernova, in which twin stars have a pretty nasty falling out and one’s massive gravity consumes the other until it overloads and releases an astonishing explosion that can glow as bright as 5 billion suns. This, as it happens, would be the only reason to ever wear your sunglasses at night.

Image: X-ray image of the remnant of SN 1006 from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Courtesy NASA

Enormous, Mysterious Explosion in Russia Knocks Trees the Eff Out

1908

Those of you who played GoldenEye on N64 know just what a desolate, inhospitable place Siberia is. So when on June 30, 1908 an enormous explosion went off in the region, there weren’t many people to witness it. In fact, a scientific inquiry didn’t even get out there for 20 more years.

That Soviet expedition was led by Leonid Kulik, and what he found was astounding. Trees flattened for miles around, but no impact crater and no fragments of, say, an asteroid. The mysterious explosion became known as the Tunguska Event.

Scientists speculate that it had been a meteor about the size of a football field exploding miles above the surface of the Earth, sending down a shock wave that leveled the trees. Being made of ice, it left behind no evidence.

Jerry. Bruckheimer.

1943-present

On September 21, 1943, Jerry Bruckheimer exploded into this world, protecting his mother and father, and the whole hospital for that matter, from an attacking terrorist group. His weapons of choice: the explosion and occasional conflagration. The hospital was leveled, but not before Jerry and Nicolas Cage pulled everyone from the building.

Bruckheimer has since bestowed on the world such classics as The Rock, in which Sean Connery hits some cars with a Humvee and they for whatever reason explode and then a trolley car blows up like 15 feet in the air and then Alcatraz itself explodes, and Con Air, in which John Malkovich throws a barbecue but then explodes everyone with the propane tanks instead, which is a typical party foul.

U.S. Government Rolls Sodium Into a Lake Because It Didn’t Want the Stuff Anymore – Or Something

1947

So 20,000 pounds of metallic sodium walks into a lake. And the lake says, “Uh, you know that you and I don’t get along. What are you doing here?” And the metallic sodium says, “The government doesn’t want me anymore, so they rolled me in. I was about to say to them–” And then the metallic sodium blows up.

But why? Well, the Americans were great at developing very accurate missiles to deliver nukes, but the Russians, not so much. So the Soviets figured that with an enormous weapon they could kinda, well, just ballpark it with their strikes.

So just what kind of destruction are we talking here? Buildings 34 miles away from ground zero were leveled, and if you were anywhere within 62 miles you’d be seeking medical attention for third-degree burns. The blast wave cracked windows 560 miles away and was still detected on its third lap around the world, at which point it must have been pretty exhausted.

Keith Moon Nearly Blows Up The Who, Walks Away Like It Wasn’t Him

1967

It’s hard to smash a drum kit like you would a guitar, so Keith Moon would opt to blow his set up at the end of The Who’s shows. Just a little explosion. No big deal. He also had a penchant for doing the same to toilets. Lots of toilets.

When the whole mess went off, it left Pete Townshend with singed hair and permanent hearing loss in one ear. Shrapnel from a cymbal tore into Moon’s arm. And, presumably, the stagehand looked around nervously and then slunk off to get drunk.

China Digitally Fakes Its Olympic Fireworks Because They Invented the Things and You Can Step Off if You Don’t Like It

2008

Someone on the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games not only thought that having firework footprints walk across the sky in its opening ceremony was a great idea, but it was such a great idea that the effect should be pursued even if it meant faking the thing.

The sequence that seemed like a helicopter following the steps to the stadium was in fact entirely digital, complete with camera shake and added haze, in keeping with Beijing’s thick-as-soup air. And it apparently took a year to complete.

Oddly, the fireworks had indeed gone off outside the stadium, but organizers deemed filming the giant footsteps too complicated and risky. So they created the flyover from scratch and stitched it in with the rest of the footage.

So remember, kids, when it comes to your dreams, aim for the moon. If you miss, you can always just fake the whole thing later.